Gama Bomb – Sea Savage
Release Date: 4th December 2020
Label: Prosthetic Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Thrash, Metal.
FFO: Accept, Warbringer, Judas Priest, Overkill, Anthrax.
Review By: Jonathon Hopper
Billed as Ireland’s premier thrash metal attack and ‘the musical version of CAPS LOCK’, if you want subtle you really have come to the wrong place. If, however, you’re in the mood for a heavy metal Herbert Melville, read on…
Opening with the pacey Judo Killer, a kind of off kilter ‘Fast as a Shark’ taking a bite out of ‘Ram it Down’ era Judas Priest complete with larynx-shredding falsetto vocal gymnastics from singer Philly Byrne and a strapping backing chorus of ‘WOAH OH’s, the four-piece waste no time in setting the scene.
The scene of course being the high seas, where – no doubt inspired by Melville’s epic whaling misadventure ‘Moby Dick’ – the crew of the steamer SS Gama Bomb are driven steadily madder through their pursuit of a mythical beast.
(It says in the record company notes that their quarry is ‘a Yeti’, though were that the case it seems like a team of Sherpas might be preferable to a boat…)
Whatever the truth, what is abundantly clear is that Gama Bomb are committed to the conceit like a crew of salty coves are committed to motion sickness, scurvy and imbuing their own bodily fluids.
Title track Sea Savage bowls about your speakers like a drunk in a barrel of rum, Sheer Khan crackles and whips like a cat-o-nine tails across the back and the gloriously bonkers Ready, Steady, Goat! lunges and lurches like a galleon in a storm until – face the colour of the weevil-infested biscuits rotting on your plate – it’s all you can do to quell the rising tide of seasickness engulfing your stomach.
You really can smell the sea monsters. It’s as if in 1984 Steve Harris had decided that a thirteen-minute metal epic charting the course of Samuel Coleridge’s best known piece of work was just too, y’know, mwah… and had instead come up with this: An insane collection of thrashing sea shanties complete with siren’s wail.
Of course, this isn’t going to be for everyone. You need a strong stomach and more often than not a penchant for the absurd to really get on board, as well as a fondness for some particularly old school metal grooves that stray on occasion from the pounding thrash that Gama Bomb are known for and into straight down the line metal.
Land lubbers may be flummoxed, but for anyone with a nautical bone in their body this album is like a really great silly hat; sure, it won’t change your life but it’s tremendous fun whilst it’s on.
(3.5 / 5)
